The Fox Lab at Duke University

Studies of  yeast and cultured mammalian cells that were experimentally engineered to become polyploid showed that division of polyploid cells leads to cell division errors.  This led to the hypothesis that polyploidy promotes cancer by by cell division errors and resulting aneuploidy. In contrast, naturally occurring polyploid cells typically do not divide, and this was used as an explanation for why these cells don't lead to disease.  Our work helped overturn this dogma. READ MORE